RSAC 2024

Let's face it...everyone in a school setting has a short attention span. Students and teachers alike are usually looking at screens or thinking about looking at screens. While that is not entirely bad, getting students to focus on the task at hand is a challenge. In this session, we will discuss all of the aspects of student/teacher engagement: from creative and practical ways to engage today's students (and teachers) in daily lessons, activities, and assessments to successfully breaking the trend of students spending more time staring into outer space than being "present" in the classroom.

This session will highlight the six best practices for students struggling in math. These practices are found in the What Works Clearinghouse IES practice guide and include: Explicit instruction protocols, precise vocabulary use, exposure to multiple representations, incorporation of number lines to enhance learning, word problem guidance, and fact fluency tips. Participants will learn attributes of students struggling in math and explore concrete tools that work best for these students. This includes Cuisenaire rods and cluster cards to help deepen student understanding of various concepts.

Do you ever find yourself stuck in a cycle of student disruptive behavior? You send the student to the office or redirect/reprimand them just to have the student return and continue with disruptive behavior. During this breakout session, we are going to discuss the two most common reasons for student disruptive behavior in the classroom. These two reasons drive many students to engage in disruptive behaviors in the classroom. Understanding those two reasons and trying some simple strategies may just stop some of the disruptive behavior cycles in your classroom. As a former classroom teacher and current School based Behavior Analyst, I have encountered many of these cycles and have worked with staff to break the cycles. Not all disruptive behaviors need extensive behavior plans to make meaningful changes in student behavior. Sometimes the simplest strategies can make the biggest difference.

Student engagement continues to be a struggle in math, especially as students get older and the purpose for learning the mathematical concept becomes less clear and interest wanes. But what if math could be taught through storytelling? In this session, the presenter will share how using Dan Meyer's "Three Acts of a Mathematical Story" in her 5th grade classroom increased engagement and excitement for math. In addition, attendees will learn the basics of creating their own 3 Act Tasks and will leave with an abundance of resources, organized by standard and grade level, that can be implemented in classrooms immediately.

The Common Core State Standards provide us with clear student learning goals for each grade level, but what is instruction actually supposed to look like to realize those goals? Many educators and school districts assume that practicing the discrete skills outlined in the standards such as finding the main idea and determining cause and effect are what the authors of the CCSS had in mind. However, the authors actually wrote that “the standards themselves are not the goal of daily instruction; understanding the texts encountered and being able to express that understanding is.” This session will discuss the research and associated instructional practices one district used to significantly improve student literacy outcomes.